“Begone!” cried Dagobert, whose irritation and anxiety redoubled, as he thought how at any moment Marshal Simon might arrive in Paris. “Begone! Were it not for this lady, I would at least be revenged on some one.”
Rodin made a nod of intelligence to Adrienne, whom he approached prudently, and, pointing to Dagobert with a gesture of affectionate commiseration, he said to the latter: “I will leave you, sir, and the more willingly, as I was about to withdraw when you entered.” Then, coming still closer to Mdlle. de Cardoville, the Jesuit whispered to her, “Poor soldier! he is beside himself with grief, and would be incapable of hearing me. Explain it all to him, my dear young lady; he will be nicely caught,” added he, with a cunning air. “But in the meantime,” resumed Rodin, feeling in the side-pocket of his great-coat and taking out a small parcel, “let me beg you to give him this, my dear young lady. It is my revenge, and a very good one.”
And while Adrienne, holding the little parcel in her hand looked at the Jesuit with astonishment, the latter laying his forefinger upon his lip, as if recommending silence, drew backward on tiptoe to the door, and went out after again pointing to Dagobert with a gesture of pity; while the soldier, in sullen dejection, with his head drooping, and his arms crossed upon his bosom, remained deaf to the sewing-girl’s earnest consolations. When Rodin had left the room, Adrienne, approaching the soldier, said to him, in her mild voice, with an expression of deep interest, “Your sudden entry prevented my asking you a question that greatly concerns me. How is your wound?”
“Thank you, madame,” said Dagobert, starting from his painful lethargy, “it is of no consequence, but I have not time to think of it. I am sorry to have been so rough in your presence, and to have driven away that wretch; but ‘tis more than I could master. At sight of those people, my blood is all up.”
“And yet, believe me, you have been too hasty in your judgment. The person who was just now here—”
“Too hasty, madame! I do not see him to-day for the first time. He was with that renegade the Abbe d’Aigrigny—”
“No doubt!—and yet he is an honest and excellent man.”
“He!” cried Dagobert.
“Yes; for at this moment he is busy about only one thing restoring to you those dear children!”
“He!” repeated Dagobert, as if he could not believe what he heard. “He restore me my children?”